


it's a long way forward

by donutsandcoffee



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Time Skip, Psychological Trauma, allusions to symptoms of depression, mentions of canonical child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 14:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12843483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsandcoffee/pseuds/donutsandcoffee
Summary: Because the universehateshim, out of all the weird Devil Fruits out there, Sanji gets hit by one that’s absolutely laughable. Of course. A Devil Fruit power that doesn’t allow you to smile? What kind of shitty, ridiculous power is that?It’s funny, until it isn’t.





	it's a long way forward

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [前路漫漫(Chinese translation)/ It's a long way forward](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958353) by [TwiggyW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwiggyW/pseuds/TwiggyW)



> This fic is a commission for [FenrirBass on twitter](http://twitter.com/FenrirBass), who wanted a recovery fic involving some hijinks with expression-altering, PTSD-inducing devil fruit powers. Yeah, I know, that sentence would sound absolutely weird out of the One Piece context. Title from Porter Robinson and Madeon's Shelter.
> 
> Also posted on Tumblr.

In Sanji’s experience, nothing good ever happened following the phrase,  _there’s good news and bad news._

It isn’t exactly the  _worst_  phrase in the world, but it’s definitely somewhere up there on the list. Right above,  _there’s a marine ship outside,_ and below the much dreaded,  _Luffy, no, get back here right no—oh shit, he just left._  Most of the time it’s not even Good News and Bad News—it’s Bad News and Even Worse, Absolutely Terrible News, Fuck You.

Which is why when he wakes up in the infirmary bed and hears Chopper say,  _there’s good news and bad news_ , he dramatically announces, “I’m going to die, aren’t I.”

Chopper looks more amused than horrified by the theatrics, which is a good sign. “You’re not going to die, Sanji,” Chopper says with a smile on his face, though it quickly slips into a frown. “Unless you feel like dying. Oh my god, do you feel like dying, somebody call a doctor—”

“ _You’re_  the doctor,” he reminds the little doctor, giving him a calming pat in the head. “And don’t worry. I’ll be fine, Chopper.”

He tries to give Chopper a reassuring smile at that, but somehow finds himself unable to. It’s an odd feeling, like trying to flip a light switch at the back of his head, only to see it flip back off by itself. He brings a hand to his face, almost instinctively, and prods at it, but there’s nothing there except his skin; no bandage or weird wounds, or worse, an iron mask— 

That’s one dangerous train of thoughts, so Sanji changes the subject. “Is Ace still around?”

Chopper shakes his head. “We parted ways right after the fight.”

It’s a little bit disappointing, but not surprising—the skirmish mostly involved the Whitebeard Pirates and a pirate crew who held a grudge towards them; the Straw Hats were just tagging along, having run into Ace again after they left the Sky Islands.

Sanji feels a certain kind of wistfulness at the thought of Ace. He likes Ace—the confident way the man carries himself, yes, but mostly the way he assumes the role of a doting, loving older brother so naturally, like a second skin. Luffy clearly looks up to him, and Sanji feels a tug at his chest when he remembers Ace affectionately ruffling Luffy’s hair. 

Not that Sanji knows what a good older brother is truly like, though. Not when— 

He balks at his own thought.  _Get yourself together, dumbass,_  he mentally scolds himself—it’s rare that he thinks of  _them_  these days, and rarer still that he’d do it twice in such a short time. The attack from the other pirate crew must’ve knocked him more than he thought.

Speaking of. “So, what’s the good news?”

Chopper nervously flips through his charts, avoiding Sanji’s gaze. “You only broke your left leg.”

Sanji groans. “ _That’s_  the good news?” 

“There’s no apparent long-lasting damage,” Chopper quickly adds. “It’s a clean break, so everything will heal perfectly. It usually takes around six to eight weeks to heal a broken bone, but considering your constitution, I would put it at three weeks at worst.” 

Sanji tries to shift his left leg. There’s a small jolt of pain at the movement, but it feels dulled, and doesn’t seem so bad. It’s still going to be a pain in the ass to cook with, though. “And the bad news is…?”

Chopper sighs, and seems to steel himself for Sanji’s reaction, before finally saying with a whisper. “It’s your face…” 

Sanji feels his stomach sink. His face? What happened to his face? He looks at the way Chopper’s shoulders sag downwards, and expects the worst—a terrible gash on his face, maybe? What would the ladies think? Oh, shit, he would match with  _Zoro_. Disgusting.

He scrambles towards the mirror, making sure he doesn’t put too much weight on his broken leg, and sees a haggard version of himself staring back from the mirror. It shouldn’t be a surprise—he just came out of a fight, after all—but he  _is_ , because there’s a tired edge on his expression that feels bone-deep, his mouth turning downwards. His eyebrows are knitted in a scowl, and he tries to smooth it away.

Except—he can’t. 

He tries to smile, this time. His lips tilt up, in a way, but the smile still looks pained. He tries to laugh, and his face just forms a nasty grimace.

“Chopper—what  _exactly_  happened to me?”

 

+

 

“One more time! One more time!” Luffy cheers, launching himself towards Sanji, only to be met with a kick to the face.

Sanji kicks him towards Usopp, who’s already lying face down on the ground, and they fall on top of each other with a loud,  _oof_. He stares threateningly towards the pile. “Anyone who pulls any other stupid shit will get kicked overboard.”

Luffy and Usopp give a reluctant,  _oooookay,_  and Zoro snickers at that, but thankfully nobody dares to say anything else. 

When Chopper broke the news to the crew, they’ve mostly taken it in stride. Expression-altering fruit isn’t even in the top ten of the list of Weird Things the Straw Hats Have Come Across in the Grand Line, and Sanji doesn’t feel like telling them that it may have affected him more than just his face.

Usopp immediately tried to tell a joke, and when then failed, dove with Luffy towards Sanji to tickle him. They both earned zero laughs and two kicks to the face.

“This isn’t funny!” He scolds them.

“It’s a little funny,” Robin chimes in with a cruel, little smile on her beautiful face.

“Robin- _chwan_ ,” Sanji whines, and falls down dramatically in front of her.

“Oh!” Zoro says in mock surprise, “the face fits now.”

Sanji tries to glare, but only ends up looking sad. He  _feels_  sad too, and doesn’t know if the constant scowling makes him unhappy, or if the unhappiness forces him to permanently scowl. It’s like some kind of a fucked up vicious cycle that’s starting to wear him down.

Sanji pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to calm himself down. “Where’s the guy who did this?” he asks. 

The crew shares looks among themselves, before Luffy speaking up, “Ace took him with the rest of the other pirates for punishment.”

Forget calm. Sanji is  _this_  close to throwing himself overboard. “What!? How can we fix whatever’s wrong with me then!?” 

“Calm down, Cook,” Zoro cuts in. “We’ve interrogated him.”

“His power freezes the person’s expression in line with the memory and emotion felt when the power hits,” Chopper explains. “The devil fruit user doesn’t have control of the expression afterwards; the owner of the expression must resolve the feeling he had to release themselves from the control of the fruit. Sort of like finding a closure.” 

Usopp slowly sits up from the floor and tilts his head. “Why did you look so sad?”

“Because my leg was fucking broken?” He grits out, and Usopp yelps and scrambles away. “I don’t know, it happened pretty quickly, and it’s not like I was conscious afterwards.”

That isn’t exactly true. Sanji remembers the moment the power hit—the familiar feeling of  _pain_  mixing with the unfamiliar sensation that must’ve been unique to the devil fruit’s power, like someone shoved their hands into his chest and  _squeezed_ , ribs and bones and heart altogether. Sanji prides himself on his high constitution and pain tolerance, but he remembers the flash of fear in that moment, the few seconds when he thought,  _this is it. I’m going to die_. 

And just like the starving kid on the rock years ago, the only thing on his mind when he was dying was—

“That’s easy, then!” Chopper says cheerfully, snapping Sanji out of his train of thoughts. “The expression stemmed from the pain from your broken leg, so as soon as your leg heals, the power will be gone, too!”

Everyone seems to agree with Chopper and considers the case closed. Sanji doesn’t want to concern them, so he plays along with it, even though he doesn’t buy that explanation even one bit. 

Judging from the way Zoro’s eyes follow him throughout the exchange, neither does the swordsman.

 

+

 

When Zoro walks into the galley, Sanji has been expecting him.

“Hey,” he says by way of greeting. He’s balancing himself against the kitchen counter, his broken leg bent and away from the floorboard. His other hand is stirring the soup he’s boiling for dinner. “Dinner’s not ready.”

“I’m not here for dinner,” Zoro says, direct as always. That, too, Sanji has expected. They may’ve been together for only a couple of weeks, but Sanji has known  _Zoro_ —as a nakama, as a rival, as a person—longer than that, has learned and understood him better than he understands himself in the months they sailed together.

The arms around his middle is unexpected, though.

“In case you didn’t notice, I have a meal to cook,” he teases, trying to keep the tone light. He leans into Zoro’s embrace, back pressing against the swordsman’s chest.

Zoro is clearly buying none of his false cheer, because he just grunts and buries his face into the crook of Sanji’s neck.

Sanji sighs. He puts the lid on top of the pot. “All right, I’ll bite. What is it?”

“You look like shit,” Zoro says into his shoulder. 

Sanji scoffs at his boyfriend’s bluntness. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“No. I mean it. You—” He pauses, seemingly in deep thought. Sanji tilts his head back to catch Zoro’s expression; he rarely sees Zoro so distressed, and it’s starting to worry him. “I’ve seen you fight countless of times; I know how good you are at handling pain. This…  _look_  you have on your face—this isn’t just from the hit, is it?”

Sanji can hear his own heart thumping. Count on Zoro to notice all these little things, even in the midst of a fight. Sanji racks his brain to avoid the conversation he isn’t ready to have yet, and immediately thinks of a new distraction technique he recently learned to pull off. Quite well, if he may say so himself.

He turns his body and pulls Zoro into a kiss.

It’s sloppy and messy, all lips and tongues, but it’s a good enough distraction because Zoro returns the kiss with a delighted hum. Sanji bites Zoro’s lower lip playfully, hard enough to make Zoro’s hands tighten their grip on Sanji’s sides.

“I wasn’t done,” Zoro complains once Sanji releases his lips, but it’s a weak argument, if the way Zoro’s hands have slipped towards Sanji’s ass is any indication. 

“Right,” Sanji says, and wishes he could give Zoro a cheeky smile right now. He makes it up with another kiss against the hollow of Zoro’s collarbone. “Can we just drop this for now?”

Zoro tips Sanji’s chin up with a touch of his hand, gentle, gentler than most would expect him to. The gesture makes Sanji’s heart stutter against his ribcage, and Sanji is glad when Zoro dives into another kiss, because he might have said something stupid. Like a  _cheesy confession_  or something.

“I’ll drop it,” Zoro says against his lips after a moment, but quickly adds, “for now. Only because you’re good with your mouth.”

Sanji  _really_  wishes he could make a cheeky smile. “Did Marimo just admit I was a good kisser?”

“Shut up,” Zoro says, but doesn’t disagree. Sanji counts it as a win. 

As Zoro trails kisses along the nape of Sanji’s neck, Sanji thinks the brute is just being his overreacting, overprotective self. Sanji can handle himself—always does—and he can absolutely handle something as simple as  _this_.

 

+

 

He can’t handle this.

He bites down on his cigarette and spits it on the sidewalk in frustration.

It’s been three weeks since the disaster with the shitty devil fruit, and while his leg is healing at a rate most people could only dream of, whatever mumbo-jumbo affecting his face doesn’t seem to show any signs of healing.

The pitying looks have been annoying enough—he has had strangers at the market tell him to go home and rest, as if a sad face had magically transformed him into a crippling old man. He usually tries to brush them off, but it’s not easy, considering he can’t even smile back at them. Supply runs take twice longer than usual, and by the time he gets back to the ship, he usually doesn’t have enough time to do anything else.

The random bar fights add to the nuisance—there are people who think that he’s weak just because he looks like he’s going to burst into tears at any given moment, which is, fine. That’s a fair assumption. He isn’t letting anyone alive after assuming that  _Black Leg Sanji_ , out of all people, is _weak_ , and he’s been kicked out of bars more times in the past three weeks than he’d been in a lifetime.

But then, there are the ladies.

The ladies on the islands they dock at, of course. The ones who deserve his smiles and his utmost attention, who now only get creeped out by his presence. Flowery words and grand romantic gestures don’t exactly look welcoming when your face looks like you just killed your neighbor’s dog, after all.

But the worst of it all, is the reaction from the ladies on the ship.

“Surely you didn’t mean that, Nami-san?” he says, voice almost a squeak. He tries to smile, mentally begging his facial muscles to pull the ends of his lips upwards, but all he manages is a weak grimace. 

“No, really, Sanji-kun,” she says, and at least looks a little bit guilty. “All the…” she gestures vaguely at Sanji, “ _swooning_  gets really weird with the face, so either you tone down on it or you just stay away from me and Robin for the time being.”

Preposterous. Impossible. That’s like telling him to choose between jumping into a sea of lava or sleeping on a bed of needles. He turns to Robin for support. “Robin-chan...”

”I’m sorry, Cook-san,” she says, clasping her hands together apologetically. “Maybe once your leg heals.”

”If that’s what you wish,” he concedes, and feels as miserable as he looks.

 

+

 

His leg heals, over time.

His face doesn’t.

Everyone starts throwing worried glances at him. Sanji tells them he’s fine, and ignores the way the grief against his heart seems to sharpen every time he fails to smile.

 

+

 

Sanji wakes up with a scream lodged on his throat.

He jerks upwards, the movement so sudden his hammock sways and almost tips him towards the ground. Zoro is immediately alert, thankfully, sitting up and putting his weight on the other side of the hammock, steadying it.

They’ve been sleeping in the same hammock more often than not these days. It’s a tight fit—Merry’s hammock wasn’t exactly built for two male young adults—but it’s the  _good_  kind of tight fit, the kind that allows Sanji to feel the warm press of Zoro’s body lulling him to sleep every night.

But now, with Zoro’s eyes boring into him with unnerving intensity, Sanji wishes he had slept alone just so he could hide this. 

“Another dream?” Zoro asks, almost in a whisper, so as not to wake the others up.

Sanji doesn’t see a point in lying, so he nods. “Yeah,” he admits.

“That’s the third time this week,” Zoro points out.  _It’s getting worse,_  he doesn’t say, but Sanji can hear the words anyways, hanging heavy in the space between them. 

Sanji presses a hand to his chest, feeling his heart pound loudly. He can barely remember his nightmare now, the memory quickly fading into blurred colors, but he can guess what it was about, and he  _hates_  it. Hates the way those bastards still have a hold on him even after all these years, hates the way his hands still shake at the thought of seeing his siblings again, hates the way he can still feel the phantom bruises along his torso—

“I’m fine,” he chokes out. It doesn’t sound convincing even to himself, but it’s the best Sanji can muster right now. 

He jolts in surprise when he feels Zoro’s hand on his cheek.

“’Fine,’ huh,” Zoro says. The tips of his fingers are cold and wet, and Sanji suddenly realizes that he’s been crying.

“Shit,” he says, trying to wipe the tears away, but it’s like opening the floodgate of emotions. “Shit, shit, shit,” he curses. feeling all the dense, suffocating pain he has tried to tamp down around his chest burst open and spilling all over and he  _can’t stop crying_ ,  _what the fuck_. 

He barely notices Zoro pulling him into a hug, and he sobs into Zoro’s chest as the other man rubs soothing circles at the small of his back.

He falls into a heavy, half-slumber while a part of him remains awake. The back of his eyelids burns and his ribs hurt like knives, and he thinks of Zoro, who’s never been anything but honest with him, and maybe sharing this part of his past with someone else doesn’t seem so bad.

 

+

 

“’I want to cook for my mother,’” Sanji says.

He waits for the words to sink in; watches Zoro slowly look up from his meal and blink. “What?” 

They have just docked at another island. It’s just the two of them on the Merry, so it’s not like there’s anyone who can overhear their conversation, but Sanji still can’t bring himself to say the words out loud in more than a whisper. “When the power hit, I thought—I thought I was going to die. And that’s the only thing I always think of whenever things go to shit,” he explains. “You’re right, it was never about the broken leg. It was, ‘I want to cook for my mother.’”

Zoro stares at him, and Sanji squirms under his scrutiny. There’s a moment of silence before Zoro asks, “you remember your mother?”

“Not much, but I remember—enough,” he says. Zoro has told him everything about Kuina, about his past, and Sanji reminds himself that the man deserves at least this much from Sanji. “I was eight when she passed away. She used to try my cooking, back when I was still learning, and I—wonder, sometimes, what she’d think if she could eat my cooking this time.” 

Zoro nods at that. Sanji is grateful that Zoro isn’t offering him some half-assed condolences, and realizes that Zoro probably knows, better than most, what it feels like to deal with the kind of grief that’s been dulled by time.

“You think this is what keeping the powers?” Zoro guesses. 

“Couldn’t think of anything else,” Sanji shrugs. “And—look, I know this is stupid, but the fantasy kind of, uh, morphed over the time, so it kind of involves cooking  _for my mother with my lover_ ,” he mumbles the last part.

It takes a moment for the words to register in Zoro’s brain, and Sanji can see the exact moment it does as Zoro face breaks into a stupid smirk.

“What was that? Couldn’t really hear the last part there, Cook,” Zoro says.

Sanji feels his face heat up. “Shut up.”

“You want me to meet your mother, huh?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Sanji half-yells. Zoro laughs, loud and free, and Sanji is secretly grateful that the swordsman didn’t freak out and break up with him or something. “ _Anyway_ ,” he says loudly over the peals of laughter, “I was thinking of making her something simple, like a bento.”

The laughter finally dies down at the mention of food. Predictable, that brute. “Oh? Thought you would make one of your stupid fancy food.”

“My ‘fancy’ menus are not stupid, asshole,” Sanji retorts as he starts to gather the ingredients. “And I used to make her a lot of bento, so I thought it would be fitting if I make her one too, this time. So she has something to compare it with, you know.” 

Zoro hums in agreement, and stands up to lend a hand. He usually only helps out with the dishes, but Sanji has seen him handle his swords—he can make use of that in many ways in the kitchen. “Cut this,” he hands Zoro a knife and a cutting board with a bunch of onions on them. “Just dice them into small pieces, and don’t cut through the cutting board.”

“Hn,” for once, Zoro doesn’t argue with him.

They fall into comfortable silence, Sanji speaking out only to give the occasional instructions. There was some incident involving a burnt plate, and Zoro  _did_  accidentally cut through the first (and second) cutting board, but all things considered, everything went by smoothly.

They both stare at the finished bento almost disbelievingly.

It’s Zoro who first speaks up. “Hey, uh, Sanji’s mom,” he says. “Your son is a pain in the ass, and he’s a shit cook.”

Sanji almost kicks him for joking about this before looking up and finding Zoro stare at the bento, completely serious. “But, uh, he makes good food sometimes, and he makes the crew happy. He makes  _me_ happy.” Zoro says, rubbing at the back of his neck in a rare sign of insecurity. “So I hope you are too, wherever you are.”

For the first time in what feels like the longest time, Sanji feels a brush of warmth beneath his ribcage. It takes a few seconds for him to realize that it’s  _happiness_ , and for a moment he is content, in the middle of his kitchen with Zoro’s shoulder pressed against his. He's free, far from the floating kingdom of his childhood, and thinks he can see his mother smile, somehow.

 

+

 

This is the part in the fairy tales where the book ends. The characters find their closure. The princess gets a kiss from the prince. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Sanji’s life is not a fairy tale.

He is content for that moment, and then he tries to smile. He can no longer ignore the sharp ache that almost chokes him when he realizes he still can’t.

 

+

 

Sanji trudges towards the ship with heavy steps.

It’s been almost a week since he cooked with Zoro, and he’s far from recovering—the suffocating feeling in his chest still drags him down, and the night attacks are becoming even more common, rearing its ugly head almost every night now.

It reminds him too much of the early days after his escape, when he was still a little kid with a too-empty stomach and phantom bruises along his limbs, and Sanji is suddenly hit with a visceral feeling of disgust towards his own weakness. Disgust towards  _himself_. 

He’s too preoccupied with his own thoughts that he doesn’t realize the eerie silence that’s blanketing around Merry, much to quiet for a crew like  _them_ , and the shadows behind the galley windows, as he swings the door open.

He’s greeted with a confetti to the face.

Literally.

It hit him right in the nose, and he’s rubbing his face as he hears Nami’s exasperated, “You’re supposed to aim it over his head, stupid!”

”Ow, sorry, Nami!” Luffy says in a tone that’s clearly a failed attempt of a whisper. “Stop yelling, I thought we were gonna surprise him!”

“I believe it’s too late for that,” Robin’s voice comes out, and at that, someone flips the ligth switch on.

There’s food on every available surface. A huge bowl of rice on the counter, surrounded by plates of vegetables and meat, and on the kitchen table is a towering, multi-layered cake that even Sanji admits looks pretty impressive. He's seen everyone's cooking at least once; knows that the meals are mostly Usopp and Robin's doing, and the cake has Nami written all over it.

There’s a large banner hanging over the ceiling with the words  _HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANJI_ , lovingly hand-painted and decorated by Luffy’s familiar scrawls.

He realizes, with a start, that in the middle of all the mess with the stupid devil fruit, Sanji has forgotten his own birthday.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” The crew cheers. It’s barely in unison, Luffy’s drawl from having his mouth pulled by Nami clashing with Chopper’s over-excited applause, and it’s still the most perfect thing Sanji has ever heard.

”How did you—“ he sputters, flustered. He can't believe that the crew remembers. Hell, he can't believe they even _knew—_ he never told them about his birthday, has long forgotten what it felt like to be grateful about the birthday he shares with those bastards. “I never...”

 "Swordsman-san was generous enough to share the information with us," Robin says, ignoring Zoro's protest in the background that no, there's no way he  _bothered to memorize the Shit Cook's birthday, shut up._

And in that moment, with his crew bickering lightly around him, _celebrating_ him, everything suddenly clicks into place.

He broke his leg, but he’d felt worse pain. He’d assumed he was thinking about his mother, but he was wrong—the dreams have clued him in on what this really was about.

As if sensing Sanji’s shift in mood, Luffy cranes his neck from the counter he’s perched on. The strawhat appears in Sanji’s vision before the owner does, but they both do, eventually, one side of the brim tipped low over Luffy’s right eye.

”Do you like it?” Luffy asks.

Sanji is chewing on Nami’s cake, but he thinks Luffy isn’t asking about that. Not exactly.

He doesn’t take more than a second to answer, “yes.”

”Are you still sad?”

Sanji takes a moment to consider that. There’s a constant ache around his heart, like a low hum that crawls under his skin, and maybe it’s always been there, now that he thinks about it. The devil fruit power may have intensified the feelings, but it couldn’t work on something that wasn’t there. “I think I always am,” he admits, voice low, remembering the lonely little kid with the iron mask and the prison bars. But then he thinks of the party set up just for him, of the Straw Hats, and adds, “but not right now, no.”

“Not right now,” Luffy repeats.

“I think you’ve made it better. All of you made it better.”

Luffy grins at that, sunny and wide. “You’re happy.” It’s a statement, not a question.

Sanji watches the cacophony around him. “I’m happy,” he agrees.

”You know what people do when they’re happy?” Luffy says. He pulls his hat off his head and places it, steady, on Sanji’s head. “They smile. You should smile, Sanji.”

Sanji feels the way the strawhat fits around him, its warmth snug against his heart; and he does, finally, smile. 

 

+

 

Sanji remembers being a little kid.

He remembers the dark prison cell, the pungent smell of the iron mask, the way the bruises on his skin left ugly marks like a brand on his heart even after they disappear. He remembers that sometimes they would dock at an island, and he would sneak away, watch the island’s locals from afar. He remembers seeing another little kid, playing with his siblings, and thinks,  _I want a family like this_.

He also remembers the day the devil fruit power hit. That day there were two attacks—one directed at him, and another at Luffy. He remembers seeing Ace, stepping in front of Luffy, pulling him away. He remembers the way Ace protectively wrapped his arms around Luffy.

Sanji remembers being a little kid; he also remembers being an adult, years away from being a little kid, but still feeling like one—seeing Ace and Luffy and the way they  _don’t_  hurt each other, and thinking, as the devil fruit power hit:  _I want a family like this_.

 

+

 

“I have a bed time story.” He says as soon as he climbs into the crow’s nest.

Zoro continues to lift his weight. “I’m not sleeping anytime soon.” 

“Once upon a time,” Sanji plows on, ignoring him. “There was a little kid. He was young and small and lonely. His father was made of gold and his mother was a ghost; he had siblings, but they never learned how to wash the blood on their hands.”

Zoro pauses at that. He slowly lowers his weight to the ground.

Sanji doesn’t meet his eyes. “When he was eight, his family had enough of him and threw him into a dark cell, hoping he would die and rot with the rats. He didn’t,” he says, and pauses, feeling his voice waver and pushes through, “but sometimes he thinks a little part of him did.”

He looks up to meet Zoro’s eyes. “The kid’s name was Vinsmoke Sanji.”

Zoro takes large strides across the crow’s nest and pulls him into a hug, hands wrapped around his shoulders. Sanji breathes into the nape of his neck as Zoro slips one hand underneath Sanji’s wrist.

“You know what’s the most messed up thing?” He laughs, but it’s the kind of that grates at the back of his throat. He swallows. “The kid thought he deserved it, for the longest time. He thought they were the family he deserved.”

He feels Zoro’s grip around him tighten. “They’re not—that doesn’t sound a lot like family.”

Sanji closes his eyes. “That doesn’t, yeah.”

He watches the rise and fall of Zoro’s chest—a steady, calming beat. And then Zoro says, “The kid found his family, though, in the end.” And adds, more firmly, like he thinks it’s important for Sanji to hear it. "A real one." 

Sanji thinks of Usopp’s nervous chuckle whenever someone calls out on his lies and Chopper’s little giggles whenever someone makes a stupid joke; of Robin’s barely-there smiles that mean a lot more than an insincere laughter ever would, of Nami’s grin whenever he makes her favorite drinks. He thinks of Luffy’s rubbery smile, stretched across his face, and  _Zoro_ , his partner, his rival, his equal—who holds him like he means  _something_.

The ache around his heart remains. It’s been there, for a long time, and maybe it’ll always be there. But when he looks up now he can see the grinning faces of his crew, and when he tries to tilt his lips into a smile, it does.

“The kid found his family,” Sanji agrees, and leans into the embrace. It's not a happily ever after, but it's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like it’s important to note, so: Sanji used the Vinsmoke in his name in the last scene not because he still uses it to refer to himself. I think it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t, and this fic is obviously all about the Straw Hats being a Found Family for Sanji.
> 
> He canonically sees himself as a separate individual from “Vinsmoke Sanji”, and constantly refers to his past self in third person every time he recounted his past. Him using the name in that scene is following the same reasoning.


End file.
